Jimmy Akin

A reader writes:

My wife went to confession this
past Sunday.  Our church provides confession before mass and it runs up
to communion.  While in line for confession, she said she wasn’t able
to concentrate on the readings, then by the time she came out of the
confessional, she had missed the end of the gospel.  She then
considered not receiving communion because she felt she did not
complete her Sunday obligation of mass.  She finally decided to receive
communion, but on the drive home she thought that she may have
committed a sin by receiving communion.  She ended up going to another
mass later that evening, but that didn’t calm her fears.  Is
there anything I can tell her or do to help her?

Yes. Let’s split this question in two.

First: Did your wife sin by receiving Communion when she hadn’t been able to participate in part of the liturgy of the word?

NO!

Y’know why? Because YOU DON’T HAVE TO PARTICIPATE IN MASS IN ORDER
TO RECEIVE COMMUNION. That’s why there are Communion services. That’s
why the Church’s documents EXPLICITLY note that it’s licit to receive
Communion even if you just happen to be walking through a church when
Communion is being distributed.

How much or how little of the Mass you attend when you receive
Communion the first time during a day has NOTHING to do with whether
you can receive Communion. You don’t even have to be at Mass at all!
You may be receiving in a Communion service (as is the case, for
example, with the sick who are receiving Communion in the hospital).

(NOTE: This applies to the FIRST time you receive Communion on a
given day. If you want to receive twice then canon law provides that
the SECOND time you receive that you need to do so in the context of a
Mass that you are attending.)

Since this was the first time (I assume) that your wife had received Communion that day, there was NO SIN AT ALL committed.

Receiving Communion and fulfilling one’s Sunday obligation are TWO SEPARATE ISSUES.

Now let’s deal with the second question: Did your wife fulfill her Sunday obligation?

Yes.

Not only because she went to Mass later in the day but ALSO because
her participation in the first Mass was sufficient to satisfy the
requirements of canon law.

Here’s why:

The Church HASN’T specified precisely how much or what parts of the
Mass one needs to attend in order to fulfill one’s Sunday obligation.
Obviously, it needs to be a significant part of the Mass, but the
Church has not offered us an explicit formula for figuring this out.

That means that it is reasonable to look to the historic practice of
the Church for help in figuring out this question. When we do that, we
find that the situation your wife was in is VERY COMMON in Church
history. Before the liturgy was revised, it was VERY COMMON to have
confessions being heard during the liturgy of the word (which was then
called the "Mass of the catechumens," separate from the liturgy of the
Eucharist or "Mass of the faithfu") and–y’know what?–they DIDN’T stop
confessions during the gospel so people could hear it. Nor did the
Church tell people they had to go to another Mass if they didn’t hear
the gospel.

A common stream of opinion prior to the reform of the liturgy was
that you satisfied your Sunday obligation AS LONG AS YOU HEARD THE MASS
FROM THE OFFERTORY NEAR THE BEGINNING OF THE LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
OR "MASS OF THE FAITHFUL." In other words, YOU COULD MISS THE ENTIRE
LITURGY OF THE WORD OR "MASS OF THE CATECHUMENS" AND STILL FULFILL YOUR
SUNDAY OBLIGATION.

I can quote this point from MULTIPLE pre-Concililiar moral theologies if necessary.

That being the case, we then ask: Do the Church’s documents indicate that MORE than this is required today?

No.

They don’t.

In fact, as I’ve mentioned, canon law does not indicate anything at
all regarding how much of the Mass we need to attend in order to
satisfy our Sunday obligation, which also tells us something else: THEY
DON’T WANT US SCRUPULING ABOUT THIS POINT. If they wanted us to scruple
about it, they would have told us more precisely what is required.

As long as we’re making a basic effort to do our part and attending
Mass–and ESPECIALLY if we attend Mass from the Offertory onwards,
which was commonly considered sufficient in the past–then we have done
that.

Now maybe she might have doubts about this.

Okay, then in comes our old friend, Canon 14 of the Code of Canon Law, which provides that in cases of a doubt of law then the law does not bind.

Given the lack of guidance on this question and the presence of the
pre-Conciliar history of regarding hearing Mass from the Offertory
onward as sufficient we AT LEAST have a doubt of whether the law
requires us to attend any particular part of the liturgy of the Word in
order to fulfill our Sunday obligation.

We therefore have a doubt of law, and the law does not bind unless and until Rome clarifies it.

Until then the faithful are not obligated to hear any part of the
liturgy of the word in order to fulfill their Sunday obligation.

That may surprise some folks, but that’s what canon law indicates
given the doubt of law situation that unambiguously exists in this case.

If your wife couldn’t concentrate on certain readings (which
wouldn’t have counted prior to the reform of the liturgy, anyway) or
didn’t hear the gospel then she CLEARLY fulfilled her obligation under
the old law and, since the new law doesn’t specify and has the
provision regarding a doubt of law not binding then she CLEARLY
fulfilled her Sunday obligation by attending the part of Mass that she
did.

So: It was praiseworthy for your wife to go to the lengths she did
to attend another Mass, but it was not required by the law and she did
not sin. Her Sunday obligation was fulfilled (TWICE!) and she should
not scruple on this point.

20